


Like Real People Do - Snippets

by glimmerglanger



Series: LRPD [2]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff, LRPD verse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23477791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmerglanger/pseuds/glimmerglanger
Summary: A series of followups (potentially some missing scenes) from Like Real People Do, as requested over comments and on tumblr. Gathered here for ease of finding them. Each chapter is a different scene, not necessarily in chronological order. POVs bounce around, the timeline shifts, etc.Chapter One: Anakin and Once Make NiceChapter Two: Anakin Finds Out About Ben's Last NameChapter Three: Ahsoka and Rex Try and Sort Things OutChapter Four: SparringChapter Five: Bant and the Baby Type 2sChapter Six: The Amidalas' Fabulous Wedding
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: LRPD [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689022
Comments: 103
Kudos: 344





	1. Chapter One: Anakin and Once Make Nice

Turned out, Anakin missed the parades but not all the award dinners. The Senate seemed intent on throwing banquet after banquet. He got it, in a way. It had been a miserable slog of a war. They’d all realized far too late they were being manipulated.

Everyone wanted a chance to celebrate.

Which was how he ended up in a dress uniform that was too tight around the neck and far too scratchy, circling a very nicely appointed room with a glass of liquor that tasted like sugar, wishing he were anywhere else.

There were Senators everywhere and other members of the Coruscanti social elite. Anakin had never liked any of them, but he quirked his lips up and tried not to make it a grimace, potentially failing if the faint amusement he picked up from Ben was any indication.

Ben had never ended up at these shindigs before.  _ He  _ seemed to find the whole thing fascinating, staring around the room as they circulated, openly curious. Then again, he also looked comfortable in the uniform. The cut of the shoulders and the waist was distracting, now that Anakin thought about it, and--

Ben cut him a glance, mouth crooking in the corner, and Anakin thought maybe he’d get lucky twice. Perhaps Ben would drag him off somewhere, getting him out of this miserable room,  _ and  _ maybe Anakin would be able to undo all the little buttons at his collar.

It wasn’t to be. Chancellor Organa swept up to them, then, and it was another round of thank-yous and we’re-so-gratefuls and Anakin just wanted to  _ leave _ . By the time it was over, he’d drained the glass of liquor. Ben’s was still mostly full - he’d never had a head for the stuff - but Anakin took it anyway, making his way over to the drink line.

Abandoning Ben to keep Organa occupied wasn’t his most heroic moment, but, hell, he’d jumped into an abyss to save Ben’s life. He figured maybe he could get away with his flight, this one time.

He kept his head down on the way to the drink line, hoping, vaguely, that the upper crust might miraculously develop the ability to read body language. No one reached out to grab his elbow or slap his back all the way over, so he counted it a success.

That was before he looked up into familiar blue eyes that weren’t Ben’s.

He froze, two glasses in hand. It wasn’t hard to identify the clone in front of him, even unable to really get a sense of him through the Force. Not many of them had reason to look at him and feel immediately wary. And only one of them was likely to have Qui-Gon’s Commander approaching from the side, a scowl on his face.

Once.

He looked… like he’d been ill, for a long time. He’d gotten pale and thinner. As far as Anakin understood, he’d been in the cells on the  _ Fallen Star  _ for months. It showed. And Anakin had no idea what to say to him, but niggling guilt crawled up the back of his throat.

He was beginning to think he’d never stop being ashamed of what had happened after Qui-Gon’s death.

“Uh, hey,” he said, finally, nodding. This was his punishment for leaving Ben with Organa. “I…” He gestured out to one side, Once just watching him, and swallowed. It was, really, as good a time as any to offer an apology long overdue. “I’m sorry. About…”

“Hitting me?” Once asked, one eyebrow arching up. Anakin grimaced.

“Yeah, that,” he said. He wondered, absently, if the Commander planned to slug him again for his trouble. It seemed possible, based on his expression.

Once flashed him a smile, there and gone, and shook his head. “I think you made up for it,” he said. “I’m very grateful you showed up when you did, in the cell.” He glanced to the side, eyes shifting, and Anakin knew what it looked like when bad memories crawled up into Ben’s head. It looked the same on Once’s face. “I didn’t expect that.”

Anakin swallowed. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing, at the time. He’d woken from a dead sleep to feel familiar fear and dread, a call for help in his head, and hadn’t put together that it couldn’t possibly be Ben until he was out the door.

“Just glad I was there,” he said, thoroughly uncomfortable with the conversation, with the memories, with everything between them. It startled him, when Once extended a hand between them, gaze expectant.

And his hand felt cooler than Ben’s, just a bit. Or maybe Anakin only imagined that, trying to assign differences that weren’t there. They only shook for a moment, before the moment ended, Once looking over his shoulder, and smiling when he said, “Ben.”

It was a relief to step to the side, to let them pull one another close, embracing. Anakin watched them walk to the side, not saying a word to one another, and exhaled. There was an itch between his shoulder blades and he glanced over at the Commander, who handed him a glass of the sweet liquor. “To apologies, sir,” he said.

Anakin snorted, half a laugh, and took the glass, raising in a little salute. “To apologies,” he echoed, and drank.


	2. Anakin Learns About Ben's Last Name

As it turned out, Ben wasn’t any happier about going back to Tatooine than Anakin was. He hadn’t particularly enjoyed his time on the planet and it really was a miserable rock. But there was no avoiding the place, not if one wanted to play merry havor with the Hutt’s slave empire, and so back to Tatooine they went.

They’d barely been on the planet any time at all, still in Mos Eisley, making their way through the streets to meet a contact, when someone barked out, from behind them, “Hey, Skywalker!” The person didn’t feel  _ happy  _ to see them. Furious would have been a more accurate descriptor. Anakin could have that effect on people. 

Anakin had already turned, scowling at the large Gamorrean shoving through the crowd towards them. Ben… recognized the man. They’d had an unpleasant run-in when Ben took unkindly to an attempt to steal R2. Anakin said, brief confusion flashing through him, “Look, I don’t--”

“I’m not talking to  _ you _ ,” the Gamorrean snarled, reaching out to shove Anakin aside with one thick arm. He reached towards Ben with his other hand, fisting fingers in his robes. “You shoulda stayed off-world, kid, I’m gonna--”

“You want to go away and take a nap,” Ben said, crisply. They were drawing far too much attention in the crowd and this needed resolved quickly. The Gamorrean blinked up at him, tiny black eyes narrowing in confusion. “You feel very sleepy,” Ben added, just in case.

The Gamorrean took a step back. “I want to go away and take a nap,” he echoed, and wobbled off, yawning to himself.

Ben pulled his tunic straight, relaxing a bit as the crowd resumed moving around them, and turned to find Anakin staring at him. “What?”

He couldn’t get a read on Anakin’s emotions. He seemed… surprised, mostly. Confused. He asked, “Skywalker?”

Ben shrugged. “It turns out people expect you to have a last name,” he said, “if they don’t know you’re a clone. So.” He took a step. They were close to their destination and running late would probably be a bad idea. 

Anakin’s sudden grip on his arm pulled him to a stop. Ben glanced down at his hand, up into his expression, suddenly gone very interested. Anakin’s eyes had darkened, and Ben didn’t understand  _ why _ , but he could feel the way the news was hitting Anakin. “And you gave them mine?” Anakin asked, and he didn’t feel angry so much as… very pleased.

Ben cocked his head to the side. “Who else’s would I give?”

Anakin sucked in a little breath and exhaled, “Force, Ben,” moving closer, suddenly. Ben wasn’t entirely sure why all this had prompted Anakin to pull him close in the middle of the street, leaning down to kiss him, hard and hungry, but he wasn’t going to complain.

He had to pull back after a moment, to murmur, “We’re going to be late.”

“Kriff me,” Anakin growled back, against his mouth, but straightened. “Alright,” he said, all his thoughts full of hot want, sudden and unexpected. “But we’re revisitng this later, Mr. Skywalker.”


	3. Ahsoka and Rex Try to Work Things Out

The thing was, really, that Ahsoka knew it wasn’t Rex’s fault. Whatever had gone wrong, whatever had made all the Type 1s go temporarily mad, it hadn’t been something Rex wanted. He hadn’t even been in his head, really.

Nothing had been. She’d felt nothing but the Dark from him, in that hallway.

It hadn’t been  _ him _ , not really, who pulled that trigger. But it was his face she saw when she shut her eyes, or when she looked in the mirror, or when she pulled on her clothes and her fingers brushed the smooth skin of her new scar, a blaster bolt punched clean through her chest, front to back.

The medics had said they didn’t know how she’d lived through it. She was lucky, they said.

She didn’t  _ feel  _ lucky, even knowing that the 501st had killed Master Unduli. It could have been worse. She knew that. It could have been  _ so much worse _ , if the Type 1s hadn’t been snapped out of whatever had overtaken them. 

But she looked over at Rex and saw a blaster, every kriffing time, and it left  _ her  _ feeling guilty.

He hadn’t meant it. Force knew she could feel the grief and self-hatred coming off of him. He hated what had happened, hated it so much it reverberated into the air around him. She should have been able to let it go. Anakin had. He barely seemed to miss a step, but things had been different, for him, during the attack.

He’d been… somewhere else. Stopping it, somehow, with the Type 2s. Ahsoka had just been bleeding out. But, kriff, even that wasn’t an excuse for the way she felt, looking at Rex. 

She still didn’t know what was going on with Anakin and Ben, but she had a pretty kriffing good idea when they started broadcasting their emotions all over the ship, turning everyone else mellow and happy. 

And she  _ knew _ what Anakin had done to Ben. She’d seen it, recognized the shape of his fingers on Ben’s skin. But he’d - Ben was regularly letting Anakin do something that made him feel  _ amazing _ , so amazing it sometimes left Ahsoka staring at a wall, her train of thought completely lost, warmth in her gut and a flush in her cheeks.

And Anakin hadn’t shot Ben, that was true. But he’d done something that left Ben feeling agony for so long Ahsoka had just got used to the hurt of it. Somehow, they’d moved past it, and she knew she should be able to, as well, but…

But she glanced at Rex and felt a throb in her chest, some deep pain, an echo of a blaster bolt.

She was still feeling it when someone knocked at her door. She knew it was Rex, could feel his mind, and considered ignoring it. But, he hurt, too. She could feel the ache in him, and some of the other troopers had - had taken out their blasters and put the barrel against their temple or in their mouth and--

She opened the door in a rush, because even if she didn’t know how to move forward, the idea that Rex might - might do something drastic cored out her gut. Rex was… out of his armor, outside the door, wearing only blacks. It was strange to see him that way. There was no hint of a blaster, anywhere about him. He said, “Hey, kid, thought we should talk.”

Ahsoka hadn’t felt like a kid for a long time. She’d almost died, she’d killed people, she’d made it through a war. She was older than he was. But she nodded, anyway, and said, “Yeah, probably.”

It felt so strange, having him in her quarters. The door shut, and she swallowed, thinking about the days before Dathomir, when he was the only person on the ship she’d had left to trust. She curled her arms around her chest and looked to the side, wishing, almost, to go back to that.

Things had been simpler, then.

Rex shifted around, radiating discomfort and guilt. He said, “Listen, I’m - I’m so kriffing sorry, I didn’t--”

“I know,” she said, because she did. 

He grimaced. She caught the expression out of the corner of her eyes. “But you’re still scared of me.”

A chill climbed her spine. She shrugged, trying to make the things she felt smaller, somehow. “I’m not--”

“Ahsoka,” he interrupted, and he sounded so tired, exhausted.

She trailed off, looking at nothing for a long moment. She said, testing the words and finding them wanting, but she had nothing else to offer. “I guess, I don’t know. I just thought…” she felt so foolish, abruptly, shaking her head. “I really am a dumb kid.” She laughed, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I just. I thought. You know. That you wouldn’t, somehow, I guess.”

He hadn’t been the first trooper to take a shot at her, after all. She’d just been sure, in that corridor, that somehow he’d be the one to resist, and it was so  _ stupid _ . He hadn’t had a choice. She’d heard all the horror stories from around the fleet, she knew Qui-Gon’s Commander had tried to kill the Type 2 he was… in some kind of a relationship with. They hadn’t been able to help it, any of them.

But.

She felt the ache coming off of him, and didn’t know what it meant, how to read the emotions. It made her feel even younger, picking up emotions she didn’t have words for. Young and inexperienced and just - so very frustrated.

He said, “I didn’t want to.”

“I know.” She scrubbed at her face again, so hard it hurt a bit. “I know that.”

“I didn’t even know what had happened, until after.”

“I know, Rex.” She looked up at him. “I’m just being…” She shrugged. She didn’t know what she was being. “I’m sorry.”

His expression cracked and he looked to the side. “Don’t,” he said, hoarse all of a sudden. “Please, don’t do that.”

She nodded, looking away as well, wishing she had the words to say to make everything alright again, the way Anakin had. He cleared his throat after a moment, and said, “Listen. I’m going to - I accepted a mission from the Senate to Mandalore.”

Ahsoka jerked her head up. Everything had been up in the air, since the official end of the war. She knew a lot of the troopers were joining up to serve the Senate of their own freewill, signing back up for tours of service. She hadn’t known Rex was going to. She said, stunned, “What?”

He still wasn’t looking at her when he said, “Yeah. Somethings wrong out there. I got my commission, all official, and I’m heading out. I thought you’d want to know. ” He nodded, once, and turned.

“Rex.” They’d just got done fighting a war. She took a step towards him. “Wait.” And he did, hesitating by her door, glancing at her sideways. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

He shrugged. “It’s what I’m good at,” he said. “And it’ll give you a break from seeing my ugly mug for a bit.”

He stepped through the door before she could formulate a reply, the words caught on her tongue. She stared after him for a moment, heart jerking unpleasantly in her chest, well aware that just because the war was over, it didn’t mean the galaxy was safe.

Kriffing Death Watch loved starting trouble on Mandalore.

She stood, frozen, thoughts racing through her mind. She didn’t even  _ know  _ what was going on with Anakin at the moment. His status in the Order and her apprenticeship were both up in the air. There barely  _ was  _ an Order anymore, just a bunch of them trying to figure out how to move forward in a galaxy turned on its head.

But there’d been a call for Jedi, too. The Senate was recruiting all over. They’d wanted a Jedi to go to Mandalore. Ahsoka didn’t know if she could look at Rex without seeing a blaster, but that felt much less important, all of a sudden. It wouldn’t matter how  _ she  _ felt about it if he were dead. 

She swore, softly, grabbing her lightsabers. They were all she  _ really  _ needed to bring with her. She could wing off a message to Anakin while in transit. She sprinted out the door, hoping she wasn’t too late to catch the transport.


	4. Sparring

Anakin should have been prepared for Ben to bring up the idea of sparring. It was something they’d done regularly, once upon a time. There was no reason to think Ben  _ wouldn’t  _ want to do it again. Really, Anakin should have expected the nudge, when it came. But he hadn’t, and he’d agreed out of habit, more than anything else.

They hadn’t sparred for almost a year. Not since Qui-Gon. Not since he’d made the mistake that still kept him up some nights. But Ben had forgiven him, and Ben wanted to spar, and Anakin had bought control in the ring with Master Windu.

“I’m curious about this new style you’re using,” Ben said, shrugging off his tunic, back to Anakin as he prepared. It was easy to get distracted by the shift of muscle in his shoulders and back as he stretched. “Where’d you learn it, anyway?”

Anakin took a second to respond, attention caught up by a sliver of skin where Ben’s blacks rode up. Ben looked over his shoulder, caught the line of Anakin’s gaze, and smirked at him. “Maybe I’ll ask you questions later,” he said, half-laughing.

“I trained with Master Windu,” Anakin said, flashing him a frown with no heat behind it. “After… everything.”

Ben nodded, thumbing on his practice sabers and settling up into a guard, the one he and his brothers used. “Well, show me how it works, then,” he said, an eyebrow arched. Anakin exhaled. Nodded. Took a step forward.

And it was so easy to fall back into step with Ben. Sparring with him never felt like fighting with anyone else. Ben  _ read  _ him, impossibly, even with the faster style he’d adopted from Master Windu. They danced back and forth, spinning in close and away, breathing in time with one another, until Anakin saw an opening and…

Didn’t take it. 

He felt Ben’s thrum of confusion, and shrugged back, a half-smile on his mouth. He hoped it would pass without comment, but it was a fool’s hope, doomed to come to naught when Ben pulled a dirty move he’d definitely not learned on Kamino or from any Jedi, took out Anakin’s knee, and rolled him to the ground.

“You’ve been learning new things, too,” Anakin panted, his knee one big blossom of hurt.

“I ran into some pirates,” Ben said, like an explanation, crouching over him, hair falling forward. And, oh, Anakin wanted to sink fingers into it, pull Ben down to his mouth. He shifted, and Ben rested the flat of his practice saber under Anakin’s chin, head tilting to the side. He said, “You’re holding back.”

Getting called on it wasn’t a surprise. Anakin swallowed, gaze shifting sideways. “No, I’m--”

“You  _ are _ ,” Ben said, and he stood, all at once. “Why? I know you’ve been training, but I can--”

“It’s not that,” Anakin said, feeling hurt and offense mingling in equal measure across their bond. He sat up, shoving his hair back. “It’s - look. Before,” he gestured out to the side, vaguely. “I’d, when I got angry, I’d spar with you.” It had been a release valve, especially when he’d grown especially infuriated with Qui-Gon. 

“Not all the time,” Ben said, like he’d known the whole time, and, Force, he probably had. He’d been able to read Anakin’s emotions so clearly, and Anakin had pushed so much into his head after Qui-Gon’s death. He had to know perfectly well what Anakin had been thinking and doing.

“Enough of the time,” Anakin said, flopping onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. Ben walked closer and leaned over him, providing a much nicer view.

“Well, you’re not angry now,” Ben said, and nudged him a bit in the shoulder with one toe. Anakin closed his eyes, swallowing a sudden flood of bitter saliva into his mouth, and Ben added, “Anakin, I’m not afraid.”

The thing with Ben was, he’d  _ never  _ been afraid. He hadn’t known enough to be afraid, when they first met. He hadn’t known to be afraid at all, until it was too late. Anakin opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say, and Ben said, “I want to spar with you again. I trust you, come on.”

Anakin felt that trust, a delicate, precious thing that he wanted to hoard, all to himself. He took a breath and opened his eyes, not entirely sure he’d earned it, but he’d done enough disappointing Ben for one lifetime. If Ben wanted to spar and wasn’t worried about Anakin taking things too far, well.

He’d just have to make sure he behaved properly.

“Alright,” he said, and Ben offered him a hand, hauling him to his feet. It took them a few moments to fall back into a groove, into the flow of the battle, but it was always so easy. They fitted together, like this, exchanging blows, making the entire thing a game of some kind.

Anakin grinned when he managed to, finally, snag a hold of Ben, yanking him off-balance and knocking one of his sabers out of his hands. He pulled Ben in, moving his saber for an ending blow, and Ben twisted his arm down, finding, abruptly, something else to grab.

Anakin froze at the warning squeeze, looking down at Ben, who was panting up at him, flushed all across the cheeks. Anakin asked, still holding his saber, but barely aware of it, all of his attention very much elsewhere, “You learn that from the pirates, too?”

Ben huffed a laugh, adjusting his grip, and  _ kriff. _ Anakin tossed the saber aside, it was far more important to put his hand on Ben’s jaw, tilting his head up, feeling Ben’s pulse beating against his skin. Ben said, in the breath before Anakin kissed him, “No, I came up with that one on my own.”


	5. Bant and the Baby Type 2s

The universe was full of unexpected tests and challenges. Some of them, Bant decided, were so profoundly cruel it was difficult to believe they were not arranged specifically to cause as much damage as possible.

She’d always enjoyed caring for the younglings. Even during the war, when caring for them seemed so much more fraught, she had taken joy in the work. They inevitably hurt themselves. All children did. Children armed with the Force could make merry havok for themselves and others, often ending in injuries both small and large.

Soothing them and sending them on their way again had been an area where she excelled.

And then they brought the clones that survived Grievous’s attack on Kamino to the Temple, and, somehow, it was only  _ then  _ that she realized they were children. The oldest looked no longer than perhaps ten. The youngest was barely walking. They were brought to the infirmary, standing at attention in a way that felt unnatural for children, watching everything with the same clear eyes; looking at them was like looking at a mirror into the past.

Memory had never been a land she enjoyed exploring, but there was no avoiding it. She was good with children and, whatever else they were, they were children. So she smiled, gently, at them when they watched her with careful eyes, and she tended the oldest, a boy named Ashed, who was wounded

There was something horrifying about seeing lightsaber burns across a child’s body. It looked like the blow had been glancing, but it was upsetting nonetheless. “It’s alright,” Ashed said, watching her, eyes too sharp, seeing too much, as she checked the injury, “my brother came and saved us.”

“I’m glad he did,” she said, wondering which brother he meant. There were so many of them. And they all felt the same, even these small ones. They felt like Obi-Wan and looking at them was like flipping back through a holorecord.

She had to go find a quiet place, when they left the infirmary, to meditate until her breathing could become even once more.

They were well-behaved, certainly compared to Jedi younglings, who had a tendency to question everything around them. They caused little trouble, really. Except when they dreamed. They never had nightmares singularly. One bad dream spread to them all, often disturbing the peace of the entire Temple.

They controlled themselves, already, but there was only so much that could be done to control the effects of what they had seen, what they had felt. Bant listened to explanations from those practiced in mind healing, shuddering at the thought that they had felt their brothers die, felt children slaughtered mercilessly.

Really, it was no surprise that they woke screaming, in panic at phantoms that weren’t there.

She treated them as best she could and reassured them that they were safe in the Temple, but she saw no faith in their eyes at her words. And the universe proved her a liar, anyway, because the Sith infiltrated the Temple.

She’d had little time to think during the attack. There were so many dead and dying, all at once, and then Obi-Wan was there - Force - and she knew it wasn’t him, but in that moment, everything had seemed tangled and off-kilter. He’d said, “It’s me,” and in her heart, he had been Obi-Wan, for the space of a breath.

He’d run off, headlong into danger, just like the Obi-Wan she’d known, anyway.

She’d pushed the emotion away, forcibly, focusing on her work, sparing only a thought to be grateful that the younglings were well away from the madness. It turned out they were better defended even than she’d known.

By the time the madness washed away, by the time they caught their bearings, it was discovered that the younglings had been moved. The young clones had led them off, into a different area of the Temple, a place they said was defensible, and their explanation of choke points and blind corners went over her head, but  _ they  _ seemed like they knew what they were talking about.

They’d gotten weapons, somehow. Lightsabers and blasters. When asked, they’d only shrugged and claimed they’d found them lying around.

There was something horrifying about the easy way they handled the weapons, but, then, none of the younglings had been hurt. 

Bant knew the children wouldn’t have survived against the Sith lord, but she looked at the clones and realized they’d have stood between the madman and the other children. “It’s what we’re for,” Ashed said, when she asked, gently, why they’d done it, any of it. He’d added, touching her hand, softly, “Why do we make you so sad?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to deny the sadness. He was only a child, one who had been through too much already. But, perhaps, one who had been through enough that he did not deserve to be fed kind lies.

She sighed, looking at his hand on hers - already his hands were almost the size of hers, the clone children grew so much faster than others - and said, “I knew your - your progenitor.”

He nodded. “Lots of people here did. They’re all sad about it. Did he hurt you?” He braced, a little, this child, and she shook her head.

“No,” she said, and it was so easy to remember Obi-Wan at his age, young and brash and full of life, before he’d even thought of being a Padawan as anything but a yearnful dream. They’d been so young, once. “I just miss him.”

“I miss my brothers, too,” Ashed said, staring at nothing, his emotions flaring with hurt, the deep pain they carried. “We talk about them. Those of us that are left. It helps.” He glanced at her, from the corner of his eyes. “Do you want to talk about your friend?”

She blinked back the tears stinging in her eyes and nodded.


	6. The Amidalas' Fabulous Wedding

“Huh,” Ben said, over on the bunk where Anakin had, reluctantly, left him. Someone had to get them some breakfast, and, after the way yesterday had gone, he could acknowledge it shouldn’t be Ben. Ben insisted he was fine, but half a building had fallen on him. 

Anakin glanced over at him, propped up against the wall, leaning over a padd that illuminated his skin. There were bruises, here and there, a scrape down his left side. “Huh what?” Anakin asked, pulling on his tunic. It didn’t feel like a bad huh, at the very least.

“Nith - my brother - he’s getting married.” Ben looked up, smiling, and something in the back of Anakin’s head kicked at his memory, but only just. He’d been thinking a lot, recently, about him and Ben, about how easily Ben used his last name, about… lots of things.

“Good for him,” Anakin said, looking to the side before his expression gave too much away.

“Mm,” Ben said. “We’re invited. It’s going to be on Naboo.”

Anakin stopped, turning back to stare at Ben, his memory finally kicking into gear. He’d  _ met  _ Nith at one of the endless dinners hosted by the Senate. He’d been on Padmé ’s arm, Anakin recalled, incredibly well dressed and grinning. “Padmé ’s marrying him?” he asked.

Ben nodded, scrolling down the padd. “She is. Should I tell them we’ll be too busy?” Ben looked up and over, a scrape across his brow, and he’d been under a house, a few hours ago. He’d spent his entire life either training to fight, fighting a war, or taking on an entire slave empire or three with Anakin.

“No,” Anakin said, shaking his head. He had fond memories of Naboo, of visiting the planet with Padmé , when he’d thought… Well. When he’d been in love with her, before Qui-Gon stifled that affection. Their friendship had never quite recovered. And it would be nice to go somewhere and have no one try to kill them, for a while. “Tell them we’ll come.”

#

Naboo was still one of the most beautiful planets Anakin had ever seen. It was strange to visit a planet so untouched by the war, but Naboo had been almost entirely ignored by the galactic strife. Anakin stepped out of their transport and smelled only living things and sunshine.

He took a step forward and stopped when Ben didn’t follow. He looked back, expecting the worst, conditioned to expect the worst, but Ben was just… Staring at the sky and the rolling green hills and the hint of a lake, through a copse of trees. “Anakin,” he said, taking a little step forward, voice pitched low, like he was sharing a secret, “it’s beautiful.”

“Sure is,” Anakin agreed, staring at him. He reached out, brushing Ben’s hand, and said, “you want to look around? We have plenty of time before we’re expected.”

#

Padmé smiled when they arrived on the doorstep of her fine manse, wide and free, the way he’d only ever seen a few times. She called him “Ani” and stepped forward to embrace him, stretching up to her toes. Anakin bent, and held her, and thought only briefly of a life they might have lived, in another universe.

“You made it,” she said, still smiling, when she pulled back. “I’m so glad. And Ben,” she said, moving past Anakin, “your brothers are all here, we made sure.”

Anakin watched them embrace. It was a strange, jarring image, which only became moreso when he glanced away and found Nith - it had to be Nith, didn’t it? - watching him with a bemused look. “Congratulations,” Anakin said, at a loss for anything else to say, and Nith’s smile widened.

He stepped forward, too, but only to extend a hand. Anakin gripped it, fighting the strangeness of the-same-not-the-same, and Nith said, “Thank you.”

#

They had a few days until the wedding. Apparently, the ceremony included a time to be spent with family and closest friends. Padmé’s family was large, and Nith had many brothers. They ended up playing in the water of the surrounding lake, the second day, engaging in some game of their own devising with a few Type 1s who’d, apparently, come with some of them.

Anakin watched them, sitting on the soft grasses that ran down to the shore with Padmé . It was disconcerting, seeing them all together, the older men taking care with the children, a single girl running amongst them.

They didn’t really  _ talk  _ to each other, though they laughed and exclaimed, chasing around a ball and splashing. Anakin leaned back on his elbows, a piece of grass between his teeth, and said, “You’re happy?”

He felt that she was. It suffused the air around them. She felt a sort of deep contentment and giddy joy at the same time. But not everyone could communicate completely without words. She hummed, leaning sideways against his shoulder. “I can’t remember being happier,” she said, and nudged him a little. “And you, Ani? Are  _ you  _ happy?”

“Yes,” he said, and then thought about it, and realized, with a sharp little ache, that he  _ was _ . He was happy, sitting here in the grass on a beautiful world, watching Ben get lifted by one of the Type 1s, limbs leaving trails of water through the air. “I really am.”

“Anakin!” Ben called, laughing, from the water, right before he was dumped backwards into the water. He splashed back up, calling, “Anakin, help, I need backup!”

“That’s cheating!” one of his brothers protested, but Anakin was already pushing to his feet. “No fair!”

“Duty calls,” he said, looking down at Padmé, who held out a hand expectantly. He pulled her to her feet, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, you don’t think I’m going to let him go it alone, do you?” she asked, twisting her hair back expertly, and Anakin laughed.

#

“Ani,” Ben said that night, after they’d all gone back to their rooms, pleading exhaustion. He was sitting over Anakin’s hips, head cocked to the side, a teasing smile on his mouth. The sun had kissed his skin, bringing out more freckles. He’d burn, if he weren’t careful, so fair skinned. 

Anakin groaned, throwing an arm over his face. “A nickname. She knew me when I was nine,” he said, and Ben laughed at him, pulling his arm aside, stretching forward and brushing a kiss against Anakin’s mouth. 

“I don’t have a nickname for you,” Ben said, against his mouth, shifting just enough to give him a thoughtful look. “Sir?” Anakin felt himself flush, knew Ben said it when his grin got wider. “Oh, you like that?” He leaned down, kissing Anakin again, slow and deep and so full of promise that Anakin rocked up against him.

“Call me whatever you like,” he said, sinking his fingers into Ben’s hair, and Ben nipped at his bottom lip, shifting against him, and Anakin forgot to worry about what he might be projecting, even with so many of Ben’s brothers around.

#

He remembered the next morning, when a dozen of them slapped his shoulders and nudged him in the ribs, at least one thanking him for  _ taking care of our brother _ .

#

Anakin had thought, vaguely, that Katya would have a harder time fitting in with her brothers. But she seemed to click into place, differences subsumed beneath their shared sameness, he supposed. 

She found him, out on the balconies one evening, slipping out and springing up onto the railing in silence. He glanced up at her, bare feet and billowing skirts, the gray lines of tattoos over her face, and said, “Hey, Katya.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Where’s Ahsoka?”

Anakin had hoped she’d make the ceremony, too. But they hadn’t spoken much, of late. Padmé said she’d been invited - she was like family to Anakin who was, Padmé said, with a little smile, like family to Ben - but had been unable to arrive. Perhaps in time for the exchange of vows.

“Busy,” Anakin said.

Katya hummed acknowledgement, turned, and left without another word. Anakin shook his head, looking up at the stars until Ben found him, sliding an arm around him, leaning into his space. “You’re warm,” Ben said, pressing his face against Anakin’s throat, and Anakin was happy to pull him closer against the chill in the night air.

#

The ceremony itself was beautiful, when it finally arrived. Anakin let protocol droids shuffle him into place, out on the sweet grass, rippling in the breeze, with the lake beyond and a flight of song birds moving across the cloudless sky.

Padmé looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, all in soft colors and flowing fabrics, her hair down in curls around her shoulders, wearing a smile he’d never seen. He supposed it wasn’t one that would have ever been for him. Nith smiled back at her, and they said their words and Anakin listened, even if he were distracted, more than he should have been, by Ben at his side.

The soft colors of their wedding garb suited Ben, who had managed to avoid burning only thanks to Anakin’s diligent efforts. Some of his brothers hadn’t been so lucky. But Ben had only freckled under the sun, which was currently turning his hair to molten copper and making his eyes shine.

Ben glanced up at him, feeling his attention, perhaps, and smiled, so pleased and content that it washed over Anakin through their connection. The bruises had faded, during their time on Naboo, there was just skin visible - too much, maybe, the shirts they wore were all cut so low - and a few scars that Anakin knew too well.

Ben threaded their fingers together, and there was cheering, all around, when Padmé curled her arms around Nith’s neck and drew him close, and kissed him, there in front of all of them.

Anakin wrapped an arm around Ben’s back, and leaned down.

#

Ahsoka made it in time for the celebratory meal, still in her field gear. She’d grown again - barely had to look up to meet Anakin’s eyes - and smiled to see him, coming forward to pull him into an embrace. 

Rex stood a few paces behind her, looking unsure of his welcome, until Ben stepped forward to nudge him. “Some of your brothers are here, already,” Ben said, leading him off, “they’ll be glad for the reinforcements.”

“I’m glad you could make it,” Anakin said, squeezing Ahsoka’s shoulders. “There’s still plenty of food.”

She snorted, pulling him into another hug. She said, “I’m glad, too. I’ve missed you, Skyguy.”

And dinner could wait, just for a bit.

#

They ate and they drank and they played ridiculous games that Padmé claimed were traditional and Anakin laughed so hard he cried. Then Ben and his brothers and the Type 1s insisted on doing some kind of dance  _ they  _ claimed was traditional, which looked a lot like fighting, all beautiful, fast movements, that dragged the eye along and ended with Ben jumping into him, just expecting Anakin to catch him.

Anakin did. He planned to make it his job to catch Ben for the rest of their lives, as soon as he found the right words to make it so.

Everyone cheered when Padmé and Nith finally made their way off, the party steamrolling onward, for most of them. Anakin had an armful of Ben and didn’t really care what, exactly, his brothers were planning to do with the knives they’d found.

“Take me to bed,” Ben said, against his mouth, and Anakin groaned, more than happy to oblige. They got cheers, too, and catcalls. Anakin ignored that, though it made Ben laugh, made him feel fizzy and delighted inside, like the bubbly liquor they’d drank earlier.

He was laughing, still, when Anakin pulled him into their room and kissed him. His mouth was soft and welcoming, his hands warm as they skimmed over Anakin’s skin, beneath the loose fabric of his shirt. And Anakin wanted this, everything about this, forever, so much he couldn’t find the words to say it and tried to speak it into being with his body, instead.

And afterwards, he panted, “Ben.”

“Mm?” Ben carded fingers back through his hair, gone sleepy and content across their bond, warm and soft and all the things Anakin had never known how much he needed. Anakin squeezed his eyes shut, fighting a sudden, senseless burn, pressing his face to the skin of Ben’s shoulder. “Anakin?”

Anakin shifted, kissed his skin where there’d been a bruise, only days ago, tasting sunlight on his skin, kissed a path up his shoulder, his throat, to his mouth. Ben hummed, melting against him, and Anakin had to pull back, had to blurt out, “Ben, I know I’m not - I can’t give you this kind of --“

Ben shifted, coming awake, interrupting, “Anakin, you don’t--”

“But I love you.” He knew he didn’t say it enough. That he counted too much on Ben picking it up across their connection. He swallowed, forcing himself to meet Ben’s gaze, so clear and soft, in the pale moonlight. “We - I want - would you -”

“Yes,” Ben said, stretching up, kissing his mouth, and Anakin curled closer, the sweet ache inside his chest filling him up, joy and contentment tangling around one another, filling up the entirety of the world and the night. 


	7. A Remembrance for Elik

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written in response to a request that asked if the Type 2s did anything to remember Elik.

Nith heard about the monument, first. Padmé told him about it as he was helping her take off the heavy headdress she’d worn to the Senate. The Republic seemed bound and determined to build memorials after the war. It was an urge Nith didn’t really understand, but even Padmé felt it; he sensed it in her.

The idea lingered in his mind as the memorial went through stages of design. He and his brothers had never… mourned, much. They’d been built to serve and die. No part of their training had been devoted to rituals for after the death. That would only slow the survivors down.

But he’d felt so many of his brothers die. He’d  _ held  _ Elik, what remained of Elik, when he finally found some peace, and so when Padmé showed him the proposed designs, he frowned, and said, “It’ll be a Jedi and a Type 1?”

The design  _ was  _ well conceived, he supposed. A robed Jedi and a trooper in full armor, back to back, in defense postures. The names and designations of the dead were to be listed below them. Padmé looked over his shoulder, her chin resting against his skin as she glanced at the design. “That’s the proposal. The thought was…” she trailed off.

“We’re not Jedi,” he said, thinking about Elik, the pieces of him, blood that wouldn’t wash off of his hands.

“No, you’re not,” Padmé said, and, “Sh,” as she turned him, pulling him closer, curling her arms around him. 

He tried not to think about it, over the following days. It was - they were just clones, anyway. Padmé had given him her last name, she loved him and he knew it, but to the rest of the galaxy… Well, he knew they’d never be of the same worth as someone natural born. And so many more of the Type 1s had died. He and his brothers were somewhere in between the Type 1s and the Jedi, so perhaps they would be the empty spaces, there  _ in spirit _ .

Padmé brought him the second design some weeks later, when he’d nearly managed to forget. “It’s a different concept,” she said, her legs stretched over his lap. She felt the need to keep her feet up, more, as the swell of her stomach grew. “What do you think?”

It wasn’t a joy, really, to see the three figures, forming a triangle, all facing outward, but there was a satisfaction to it. “There’s been a bit of a disagreement about the design,” she said, as he watched the holo rotate. “Your brothers didn’t… you didn’t cover your faces. No one is sure which of you to… to represent.”

Nith looked over at her, into the concern of her dark eyes. Perhaps he should have just said to go for the most common look they shared, their baseline appearance. A better man might have suggested their progenitor. But they weren’t Obi-Wan Kenobi. None of them were.

And he thought of Elik, who had come out into the galaxy and gotten nothing but pain, who had called out to them for months, who had led them, irrevocably, to the truth about what was happening, to the end of the war. He swallowed. They didn’t mourn their dead. There was no time for that on a battlefield.

But they weren’t on a battlefield anymore. He said, “I have a suggestion.”


	8. Barriss and Lorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a request wanting to know what Barriss and Lorn got up to, exactly.

Barriss carried a twisting knot of dread inside her chest for so long she forgot when she picked it up. It had just grown there, building on itself, which each battle they couldn’t quite win, with each decision from the Senate that she didn’t understand, with each person she watched die because they  _ couldn’t do enough _ .

She buried it, as best as she could, when she could not untangle it. She shoved it down and felt it eating away at her, trying to get free. It was there, waiting, when General Skywalker transmitted information about the Type 2s, about their origin, about Count Dooku.

She’d been in the sparring rooms with Lorn, when she received the message. He had been standing close, a hand on her arm, changing the angle of her attack. He’d frozen there, fingers against her robe. They were already looking at one another; she had not, really, been paying that much attention to her form.

He said, eyes wide and full of horror, “It’s - that can’t be true, I’m not--”

“I know,” she said, the feeling of shock and dismay coming off of him. In her ear, Master Unduli asked if she knew where Lorn was. If she were safe. For an immediate report.

Barriss pulled the comm from her ear, tossed it to the ground, and crushed it beneath her heel. “Barriss?” Lorn asked, standing there only in his blacks. “What are you doing?”

“We’re getting out of here,” she said, feeling a sharp little thrill at the words. She always listened. She was always a good Padawan, a good Jedi. She’d obeyed orders that cut up under her skin, but the ball inside her was unraveling, all at once. “Right now.”

Lorn stared at her, he said, “But--”

She took his hand, feeling daring, all of a sudden. She’d never touched his  _ skin _ before, always restrained herself. It wasn’t proper to want to tangle her fingers with his, their calluses lining up, fitting together. “Come with me,” she said, looking up at him, her heart racing in her chest. “Please.”

He swallowed, staring at their joined hands for a moment, and then jerked out a nod.

#

Barriss had no idea where to  _ go _ , once they got off the ship. They’d needed to get away, and so they had, but then they were left sitting in a little transport, Lorn at the controls, glancing over at her to ask, “Where to now?”

The entire galaxy spread out around them. For the first time in her life, Barriss could go wherever she wanted. Her heart beat unsteady in her chest with the realization that she had no idea where she wanted to be, besides where she was.

She wetted her lips, looking away. “The Outer Rim,” she said. “We’ll be able to hide there.”

#

“You could go back,” Lorn said, standing in a crowded space port, watching crowds stream by. They were tucked into a little hallway, their transport on the other side of the city, just in case someone came looking for it.

She looked up at Lorn, who was staring out into the crowd, frowning. “What?”

He shrugged. His hair had started to grow out, in the last few days, forming a sort of red fuzz over his scalp. “You could go back to Master Unduli. Tell her I made you help me escape, but that you got away.”

The idea appealed to a part of her. There was a piece of her that wanted nothing more than to run back to what she’d always known, throw herself on Master Unduli’s mercy. But she hadn’t  _ liked  _ what she’d always known.

Still. Lorn had suggested it, and she didn’t know, really, how he felt about any of this. About her. She looked to the side. “Is that - do you want me to go?”

He hesitated for a moment, long enough that she looked back at him. He said, quietly, “I want you to be safe. I don’t want you to be a fugitive for  _ me _ , Barriss.”

Her heart ached. She could feel the sincerity of the words, his concern for her. She reached out and caught his hand again, feeling daring. Brave. All the things she’d so rarely thought herself to be, before. She said, “I want to stay with you.”

He rubbed his thumb across her knuckles, making her breath catch in the back of her throat, and nodded.

#

They ran, without any destination, really. They found work, here and there. It wasn’t difficult. Many people needed help. Most of those they helped didn’t have many credits to spare, but they made enough to get by and… and Barriss slept better, at night.

She got used to the warmth of Lorn’s body, to listening to him breathe when he slept. To touching his hand, or his arm, or his side, as they worked. It was strange, how the familiarity never made her heart beat at a more reasonable speed. 

She thought about Master Unduli, sometimes, in the small hours of the night, or after a job that went bad, or with her first step onto some new world. She hoped her Master was doing well. She hoped the war was going well. She hoped she was doing the right thing, it felt like the right thing, but--

Lorn bumped the back of his hand against hers, soft, and she exhaled the breath caught in her chest, glancing up at him.

#

They ran and things went well, mostly, for so long that she almost forgot that people were looking for them, or. They were looking for Lorn, anyway. Officially, he was a fugitive, wanted for questioning and his own safety by the GAR and the Senate. Everyone in the Army was looking for him.

So, they came to find out, were individuals most definitely not associated with the GAR, unless standards had slipped.

Bounty hunters, it seemed, had more than a passing interest in the price on Lorn’s head. They ended up hiding from a pair on a world with a name Barriss never learned. Lorn had darkened his hair - the copper was too noticeable - but Barriss still felt exposed, sitting in a rundown bar, listening to two hooded figures ask the bartender for someone matching Lorn’s description.

The bartender, apparently, didn’t believe in sharing the information or he hadn’t gotten a good look at Lorn, because he kept his mouth shut. The bounty hunters moved through the bar, anyway, interest and cold cruelty moving through their minds as they came closer.

Making a run for the door seemed like a sure way to grab their attention. Lorn cut a glance at the pair, looked back at her, and opened his mouth. Barriss just  _ knew  _ he was going to suggest something stupid and self-sacrificing, but there was next to nowhere to go and--

She grabbed the front of his robes in both hands and pulled him closer, stepping back towards the wall, pushing up onto her toes at the same time. She kissed him with her eyes open, surprise flashing across his expression even as she wrapped an arm around his neck, trying to obscure his face, and it didn’t mean anything, it was just--

He made a little sound, surprised, against her mouth, and shifted, and suddenly it wasn’t just a mash of her mouth against his. He was kissing her and she’d never been properly kissed before, feeling heat flowing down her spine, tightening her grip on him reflexively, feeling him press a hand against the wall over her shoulder.

She barely noticed the bounty hunters moving past, snickering to themselves as they went. It seemed much more important to shift a little closer, grip a little tighter, come a little more undone beneath her skin.

She tingled, all over, when Lorn shifted back, breathing raggedly. His mouth was reddened. His cheeks were flushed, eyes dark as he looked to the side and said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have--”

She pulled him back, kissed his mouth again, and knew it wasn’t the Jedi thing to do, knew Master Unduli would be disappointed in her, knew it all, and didn’t care.

#

Barriss thought less about Master Unduli as the weeks turned to months. Maybe it was natural. She didn’t know. She’d thought her Knighting was still a few years away, she’d thought they’d be together for so much longer, but…

But it wasn’t Master Unduli who shared her quarters, these days, or Master Unduli who she saw first when she woke up, or Master Unduli who she fought beside. Her thoughts slipped away, though she ached for her Master when she saw reports of battles gone wrong.

She felt their connection, still. She had not broken their training bond, and neither had Master Unduli, though that was… not quite according to regulations. It still moved between them, a tether back to a life Barriss had left. Comforting, in a way.

When it broke, it left her reeling. Pain came before the severance, pain and horror that drove Barriss to her knees, and a wave of affection, just for her, as though Master Unduli had taken a moment in her death to offer one last kindness to her, after she had ran, after she had said nothing for six months, after--

She felt Lorn’s hand on her shoulder, heard him asking her something, but his voice came from far away. She could barely breathe, the broken edges of the bond slicing at her mind, cutting deep. Barriss reached up, grabbing for Lorn’s hand, and gripped his fingers in time to feel him start shaking.

He ended up on the ground, jerking her abruptly from the grief and loss in her chest. There was no time to process it, not as his eyes rolled back. Similar had happened before, often, but never to such a degree.

Barriss rolled him onto his side, babbling nonsense, reaching out to the Force, sure, suddenly, that she would lose both Master Unduli and Lorn in the same terrible instant. Her heart froze to something cold and terrible in her chest, as people just kept walking past them, uncaring, unconcerned.

She smothered a sob, it wasn’t useful, and grabbed him, hauling him out of traffic with the Force, into an alley where she could pull him close and hold him, until the shaking stopped. He gasped in her arms, after far too long, rasping, “Barriss?”

“It’s alright,” she lied, her arms around him, his face pressed to her neck.


	9. Cody and Once End Up on a Farm Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because they deserve a quiet life.

The war ended, somehow. Somehow, a few words were said, and it was just  _ over _ . Swept away. The thing Cody’d been made for: just  _ done _ . He’d never known how to be anything but a soldier. In the immediate aftermath, when the Senate announced it was open to his brothers volunteering for service, that had seemed the obvious choice.

The Kaminoans hadn’t trained him to do anything but fight.

But he’d learned other things, along the way, despite their efforts. He’d learned to care for his brothers. For his Generals. For Once, who’d come out of the war worn thin and pale. He didn’t look much better after they pulled him out of the bacta. His hands shook, sometimes, and sometimes he didn’t respond when people talked to him, staring at nothing.

Cody took one look at him and knew he wouldn’t make it on a battlefield. 

The thought of leaving Once somewhere and going off to fight on his own left him feeling so uneasy he had to get up and pace. He’d be fine. The galaxy had tried to kill him over and over for three years. If he’d lived through all that, he didn’t see what else was going to kill him.

But Once sometimes forgot things. Important things. Like eating. 

So, Cody didn’t sign up. He took the funds the Senate had allocated, pay for services rendered, blood money, he supposed. It was more than he’d expected, especially with Once’s included. He looked at the credits in his account, looked at Once, and was left with the massive task of figuring out  _ what next _ .

“I’d like to go somewhere quiet,” Once said, when Cody asked. They were in the quarters they’d been assigned in Coruscant. It was quiet, quieter than it had ever been on the  _ Fallen Star _ , but Once was sitting wedged into the corner, his hands pressed to either side of his head.

He never complained about the noise, not unprompted, but when asked he always mentioned it, even when there were no sounds at all. Cody’d figured he wasn’t talking about physical noise after the first time or two. 

“Somewhere quiet,” Cody repeated, thinking about all the minds on Coruscant, all the minds on the  _ Fallen Star _ , thinking about the way Once sometimes replied to things no one said out loud. “We can do that.”

#

Finding somewhere quiet proved a challenge. Cody wasn’t sure where to look. They’d never been sent anywhere  _ quiet _ . But Once’s brothers had suggestions, especially the one who seemed attached to Senator Amidala by the hip.

They ended up with a piece of land on some moon in the Outer Rim. “I can’t promise it’ll be completely safe,” Nith said, when he came to hand over a deed. Cody recognized him, seeing him in person. He’d been with Once, down on Coruscant, when the red guards tried to kill them. “In fact, it might be incredibly dangerous. But it’ll be -- there won’t be a lot of other minds, around.”

“Do you know what’s…” The words ‘wrong with him’ wouldn’t quite form on Cody’s tongue. They stuck in his throat, choking him. He ground his back teeth together.

Nith glanced to the side, like he heard the entire question, anyway. He said, “I don’t know what he did, exactly. But it was like nothing I’d ever felt before, when he did it. I thought I was going to die. I thought we were  _ all  _ going to die.”

“But you’re not, you don’t need the quiet,” Cody said, plowing onward through this conversation, because he needed to know.

“I wasn’t the focus of it all,” Nith said, expression gone sad and grim. “It’s - he hurts,” Nith spoke the words quickly, quietly, suddenly leaning closer. “He hurts, we can all feel it. It’s. We’re doing our best to help, but. He’s going to need… someone looking out for him. Maybe for a long time. Are you sure…?”

Cody met his eyes, so clear and familiar, different at the same time. Cody didn’t hate, much. Not even the Separatists. But something in him hated General Jinn. Once never looked so sure as Nith did, as his other brothers did. “I’m sure,” Cody said, and Nith smiled at him.

#

Their moon was covered with verdant greenery and not much else. There were some living creatures, mostly small, and insects. No native sapient species, according to the data Cody had been given. 

Once had stopped complaining of headaches on their shuttle; Cody had bought the ship outright with some of their remaining funds. Some of the lines around his eyes disappeared and he started sleeping through the nights, no longer waking up to curl into a ball, arms wrapped over his head.

And if he replied to things Cody had only thought, more often than not, well. There was no one on the moon to be bothered by it. Cody didn’t bother to mention it.

#

They, technically, needed to do something. Sooner or later, they’d run out of credits. Cody had vague ideas about farming, but he’d never planted anything in his life, except bodies in the ground. They made do.

They lived out of the shuttle, for a time, until they managed to construct a habitation. It took time, but there wasn’t really any rush, as near as Cody could tell. They cleared some land. Planted some local flora that had been identified as a nutritional crop, spent their days and nights together.

Cody worried about hurting Once, and shouldn’t have, because Once picked up on it and pulled him close, hands moving over skin, mouth warm and welcoming, and, when they moved together, sometimes Cody slipped into his thoughts, the raging storm of them.

He saw himself there, sometimes, a single stable point around which Once was spinning, struggling to coalesce.

#

They got visitors. Travelers stopped for a chance to stretch their legs. Their brothers dropped in, both those still serving and those not. Once handled some guests better than others, but always with little lines of strain around his eyes. 

Sometimes, Once turned visitors away, refused to let them out of their ships. Cody didn’t question it. He wasn’t a fool, and denying that Once heard things he didn’t would have been ridiculous.

#

Cody was surprised to find things to enjoy, on their little moon, but it was beautiful. He particularly liked the sunrises, which painted the sky from horizon to horizon. He liked not fighting. He liked watching things grow.

And if he sometimes had to remind Once of where they were, or  _ when  _ they were, well.

He could do that, too.


	10. Anakin and Ben Cause Trouble, Get Engaged

Anakin had dreamed of going home at the head of an army for nearly as long as he could remember. The Hutts, all the other slavers, stirred a disgust in him that had never slept. They were a blight on the galaxy, and he’d never understood the Senate’s reticence to do anything about them.

The fact that a Sith had been leading the Republic around by the nose for almost two decades explained a lot, he supposed, but there had been corruption, even before Palpatine rose to power. Senators who saw their pockets lined by the slavers, who were inclined to look the other way and pass off the problems in the Outer Rim as… minor issues, of no concern to Core worlds.

Anakin wondered, briefly, if Chancellor Organa planned to uphold that status quo. It would have been easy to relax. To claim that they needed to recover after the war. To sweep aside other problems and claim only victory.

Anakin told Ben all his concerns, all his worries, pacing around the small space they’d been allocated on Coruscant in the immediate aftermath of the war, and Ben raised an eyebrow and said, “Aren’t you friends with Senator Amidala?”

Anakin paused in mid step, frowning at him. “She’s an old friend, yes. Why?”

Ben shrugged, reaching out to grab Anakin’s belt, tugging him closer to say, “Why don’t you talk to her about this, then. She’s got a lot of power right now, you know.” And it was a good idea, but one that Anakin didn’t pursue right away, because he was, abruptly, more focused on other concerns.

#

Somehow, Anakin didn’t expect that Ben’s suggestion would actually work. Somehow, he figured the entire thing would be delayed, put off, once more. But it wasn’t. They were allocated resources. They were sent off. And, suddenly, after years of waiting, no one was telling him that he had to keep swallowing all the injustice, the cruel unfairness of the galaxy.

Something inside Anakin eased with each fight, with each organization they disrupted, with each person they freed.

It was a difficult slog, miserable and dangerous each day. They drew bounties almost immediately, slavers offering insane amounts of credits for their heads. A bounty hunter blew up a building with Ben in it, and Anakin--

Killed him, dug Ben out, took him somewhere relatively safe and patched him up.

Their little campaign had a cost, taken out in sweat and blood, and Anakin paid it willingly, but, brushing Ben’s hair back while he slept… Well, sometimes Anakin wondered if he’d asked too much.

#

They made terrible progress. The bounties on their heads grew higher. It felt almost inevitable that, eventually, they’d miss a step. Luck was bound to turn against them, sooner or later. When it did, it was on Tatooine - of course, Anakin should have expected that - and he was alone, and when they took him, he spared a moment to be grateful that Ben wasn’t there.

The bounty hunters didn’t kill him. He was, apparently, worth more alive than dead. Wanted for questioning, he was told, when he woke, groggy, in an overheating cell. There was a collar around his neck, shut too tight around his skin, so he felt each beat of his heart. He couldn’t feel the Force at all.

He said nothing, nothing at all, on the entirety of the trip to whoever had bought him, no matter how hard they asked their questions. He thought about Ben, about his smile, the brightness of his eyes, going somewhere else in his head.

#

The bounty hunters brought him to a Hutt. It wasn’t a surprise, truly. The Hutts had their fat, slimy fingers in every aspect of the slave trade. Anakin was dragged in covered in chains and blood. They forced him to his knees in front of the giant, ugly worm, who spoke in a low rumble to the bounty hunters. He spoke in Huttese; Anakin hated the language, but knew it. “Where is the other, the partner?”

“We couldn’t find him,” one of the hunters said, shrugging. “But we got--”

“My orders were that they both be brought to me,” the Hutt said. Anakin didn’t recognize him on sight, but he was one of the biggest Anakin’d ever met.

“And we’ll bring the other.” The hunter shrugged. “Give us half the bounty now; we’ll be able to--”

“You’ll receive your bounty when you’ve completed the job,” the Hutt said, and for a moment Anakin thought they might all fight. But the hunters only inclined their heads and left, leaving him in the Hutt’s stinking presence. The worm said, not looking at him, “You’ve been causing me no end of irritation, Jedi.”

Anakin sneered up at him, his mouth remembering how to speak Huttese. He left the comment about being a Jedi alone. It wasn’t the Hutt’s business. “I’m just getting started.”

The Hutt laughed, shaking all over as he threw back his large head. “You’re finished,” he said. “And so will be your little friend. He’ll be brought to me, and then you will  _ both  _ be executed. I’m almost glad they haven’t found him yet. It will give me more time to decide what to do about you. The only question is…” the Hutt looked at him, huge golden eyes narrowed. “How shall we pass the time?”

#

They passed the time with pain. Anakin hadn’t expected anything else. He sank into his head, into his bones, going away from it. He had long experience with that. It was easier, when he could access the Force, but not impossible without.

He held onto the bright memories of Ben and gritted his teeth while the Hutt’s servants worked over his body, asking questions he wouldn’t answer. He lost track of time. Lost track of everything but thirst and hunger and pain.

The Hutt visited, frequently. He liked to lounge across the room, slaves hand-feeding him wriggling delicacies, breathing heavily while he stared. Anakin ignored him, ignored the questions about where Ben might be, and the suggestions that he would be fed, alive, to a Rancor, ignored them all, until the screams finally started.

He laughed, then, listening to blaster fire and explosions. The Hutt stirred, across the room, demanding of one of his guards, “Go, find out what is going on, right now.” The guard slipped from the room as Anakin grinned, tugging at the bonds around his arm. “Why are you smiling, Jedi?” the Hutt demanded.

Anakin looked up at him, met his eyes. “Because,” he said, “you spent all this time worrying about finding my partner.” Someone screamed, briefly, much closer to the room. Anakin’s gut tightened with anticipation. “When you should have been worrying about him finding  _ you _ .”

The Hutt sneered, huge, wet mouth twisting as it moved. Anakin never found out where it intended to go, because that was the moment the doors slammed open. The air carried the stench of blaster bolts and blood. “Guards!” the Hutt snapped, for all the good it was going to do him.

Anakin watched the door, heart kicking in his chest when Ben stormed through. He was grim-faced, both sabers lit and moving. He moved impossibly. Anakin couldn’t feel him, couldn’t sense him, with the collar on, but he knew what it looked like when Ben was drawing on the Force.

His movements were crisp. Perfect. He flowed through the guards like water around rocks, expression unchanging the entire time. “Stop,” the Hutt snapped, moving forward, towards Anakin, with a surprising burst of speed, “or I will kill--”

Ben  _ didn’t even slow down _ in his march across the room. He just kept coming, leaving the Hutt behind in several pieces. Anakin stared at him, breath getting shallow, as Ben deactivated one lightsaber, hooking it to his belt almost absently.

He waved a hand, and metal screamed around Anakin’s wrist before the shackle snapped. Another step and the other shackle was gone. Anakin pushed to his feet, dizzy and ignoring it, full of pains all down his back and body, but barely feeling them.

Ben reached him, then, touched the collar and Anakin felt it sparking, but didn’t care. The Force came flooding back into his body and his mind. He saw the way it bent and spiraled around Ben, thrumming against his skin, and exhaled, hard.

“Ben,” he said, panting, and Ben was putting a careful hand to his face even as Anakin put hands on him and pulled him closer. Ben’s fingers twisted into his hair, holding tight as Ben rocked up onto his toes. Kissing him felt like grabbing the Force with both hands.

They stood, clenched together, in the middle of all the destruction. Anakin shifted back, just enough to look at Ben’s expression, his bright, clear eyes, the blood splattered across his skin. Ben had found him. Had carved a path to him. Had just killed a room full of slavers without breaking his stride. Anakin gazed at him, heart clenched hard, and said, helplessly, “Marry me.”


	11. Anakin and Ben Get a Bit Spicy

Ben and Anakin usually didn’t stay very long in one place. It was a bad idea, with the bounties on their heads and the fact that, well, pretty much everyone wanted to kill them. But sometimes, it was worth staying in one place for at least an hour or two.

They found an entire bathing  _ level  _ in one of the slaver palaces. The entirety of the complex was tiled in beautiful colors: floors, walls, and ceilings. The air was humid and warm. Stepping out into the rooms was like stepping into another world, one full of soft, burbling water, the smell of some sweet spice, and dim light.

“We should wash off,” Ben said, automatically, looking around the pools built into the floor, steam rising off of them, thick into the air. He was covered with sweat, blood, and other even less pleasant fluids. He didn’t actually remember the last time he’d had a chance to bathe in actual water.

“Yeah,” Anakin agreed, staring around the room with wide eyes. Ben snagged his wrist, tugging him forward a step and then another. All of the pools were large enough to hold multiple people. The water was so clear Ben could see right to the bottom, where, yes, there were more mosaics.

The ones in the tub weren’t quite the pleasant patterns around the walls and floors. They depicted… figures. Engaging in all kinds of acts. Some of them Ben was familiar with. A few seemed… unlikely to be physically achievable. He cocked his head to the side, and asked, “Do you think I could bend that way?”

He glanced up, flashing Anakin a grin, and got an interested look in return. “We could find out,” Anakin said, and Ben laughed, all the anger and stress from the fight washing out of his head. He turned, reaching up to curl a hand around the back of Anakin’s neck, tugging him down to kiss his mouth.

He pulled back after a moment, and Anakin leaned forward after him, chasing his mouth. Ben smiled, drawing him along, turning, and, when the moment was right, giving him a shove with the Force.

Anakin came up from the water sputtering, hair plastered to his head, robes billowing around him. Ben laughed, punchy on the aftermath of the fight and full of crashing adrenaline. He dropped Anakin’s lightsaber, plucked from his belt, gently to the ground and unclasped his own as Anakin straightened.

“How’s the water?” he asked, shrugging out of his tunic, and Anakin put one hand on the side of the pool, pushed himself up, grabbed Ben’s belt, and yanked him in. “Oh, it’s very nice,” he said, caught close to Anakin, who snorted, rolled his eyes, and pulled him closer.

“My robes are all soaked,” Anakin grumbled against his mouth, though he didn’t feel too put out about it. 

“Oh, are they?” Ben shoved at the sodden fabric. “Better take them off, then,” he murmured, kissing Anakin again, hands slipping downward. Anakin swore softly, fighting the soaking clothes down his arms, temporarily tangled as Ben worked to distract him. 

Anakin’s skin was warm and so tempting. The water left trails all across it that Ben followed with fingers and mouth, listening to Anakin swear as he finally managed to wrestle out of his tunics. Anakin used his newfound freedom to jerk Ben’s belt open, shoving fabric down Ben’s legs with a dark look, all full of promise.

Ben met his gaze, grinning, pulling him closer, as close as possible, in that warm room where no one was trying to kill them, just for a while.


	12. Discussions About Qui-Gon

Once felt his brother long before the shuttle reached the surface of the moon. Ben was hurt. Badly. The ache of it woke Once from a fitful sleep - all of his sleep was fitful, he knew it worried Cody - and drew him outside of their little home. He stood, barefoot on the chilly ground, staring at the sky, until Cody followed him out and wrapped a blanket over his shoulders.

“It’s early,” Cody said, his ever-present concern a familiar presence, curling around Once tighter than the blanket. In his thoughts Once heard  _ are you alright what can I do what can I ever do how can I-- _

“Ben is coming here,” Once said, Cody’s thoughts continuing to flow around him. “You remember him.”

He knew Cody did, felt the reaction to the news, dread and a spark of anger, there and gone, a flash of General Skywalker’s face. “Yes,” Once said, eyes on the stars, on the ship descending through atmosphere, not yet visible. “General Skywalker is with him.”

“You wait inside,” Cody said, gruff, thoughts going harder, sharper, the way they used to do before battle. He put a hand on Once’s shoulder, nudging him towards the door. 

Once took the steps upwards. He didn’t really want to see Skywalker, though he always appreciated visits from his brothers. They helped with the noise in his head. He said, over his shoulder, “He’s afraid, Cody.”

_ He better be _ , Cody thought, clear as a shout across a battlefield, stalking forward to the little area they’d cleared for ships.

#

Once sat about preparing a space for medical treatment. He wished he had time to meditate. He had a feeling he’d need whatever shields he could build up. Cody wasn’t going to turn Skywalker away, no matter how angry he felt currently. Not once he got a look at Ben. His pain crawled around inside Once’s head, making a home there.

He felt Cody’s alarm when they landed and all the desperation bleeding off of Skywalker. He stood, tugging his shirt straight, and moved to open the door as they approached. Skywalker was carrying Ben, Ben’s head fallen against his shoulder. Skywalker’s thoughts were nothing but buzzing white noise and panic.

“They need help,” Cody said, feeling guilty about it, and Once nodded.

He said, “I’m ready for him. Put him over there.”

#

They only had one bed in their little farmstead. They didn’t really need more. Visitors could sleep out beneath the stars or in the barns if the weather was bad. They didn’t have many guests, and space was precious.

Ben bled onto the sheets. He hurt, only barely conscious, blinking his eyes and trying to focus on Once, making strange little sounds in the back of his throat. “Sh,” Once told him, stroking a hand across his brow and gently lifting the pressure bandage over his gut.

Beyond their little bubble of space, Cody was being angry with Skywalker. Once listened to him rasping, “We’re not a kriffing field hospital, Skywalker.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Skywalker said back, sounding exhausted, strained. “Ben said he felt one of his brothers here. I had no idea it was you two. What are you doing here, anyway?”

Once tuned them out. It was easier, with Ben’s pain to serve as a distraction. He said, after a moment, “I’m going to need help,” and felt both of their minds tighten with alarm as they hurried over. He smiled down at Ben, and promised, “You’re going to be fine.”

#

Once went outside, after they were sure Ben was stable. He liked the open sky. He felt like he could fall up into it, stretch his mind from horizon to horizon and never run out of space. He liked sinking his toes into the dirt, feeling the cool stability of the moon beneath him.

He closed his eyes, breathing in, breathing out, listening to Skywalker’s thoughts buzzing when he stepped outside. “Of course,” Once said, hearing the ‘thank you’ and realizing a moment too late it hadn’t been spoken yet, when Skywalker prickled all over. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You think loudly.”

“How are you doing… that?” Skywalker asked, taking a few steps towards him, not too close. His mind was full of memories, images of Once pressed against a wall, a bruise blossoming across his cheek, of Ben, of marks on a shoulder, of--

Once shook his head, though that never did anything to remove the thoughts and images. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just happens.”

Skywalker felt conflicted, a thrashing mess of emotions that Once couldn’t detangle and didn’t care about attempting. Once opened his eyes, looking at the stars spread overhead, starting to be covered over by the light of morning.

There were things he’d always wondered about Skywalker. Things he could probably find out, currently.

He asked, “Why did you hate me so much?”

“I -- that’s not --” Skywalker started, and stopped, trying to push down his emotions, instead. A fast learner, was General Skywalker. Just not fast enough. Memories flashed through his mind, anger and hurt and betrayal and confusion and--

Once curled, the movement involuntary as his hand came up to his chest, gripping at his shirt. He panted for a breath, dizzy, and Skywalker took a step towards him, alarmed and worried, and how far they had come, the two of them.

Once looked up at him through eyes that blurred and said, “I didn’t. I didn’t want to be Obi-Wan Kenobi. I never wanted to be him.”

Skywalker hesitated beside him, one hand extended out and frozen a few inches from Once’s arm. He radiated uncertainty. Concern. Guilt so heavy it filled up all the air around them, almost burying the hurt he was carrying around like a stone around his neck. “I didn’t want to take him from you.”

Skywalker flinched, looking to the side, rasping out, “Please, stop.”

“I can’t,” Once said, half-laughing. “I wish I could. I don’t want to know these things any more than you want me to know them.” He didn’t want to know that Skywalker had thought he’d somehow… convinced General Jinn that he was Obi-Wan Kenobi. Somehow deceived him. Somehow stolen a life that was never supposed to be his.

He laughed again, at the sheer absurdity of it, and felt Cody drawn outward by the sound, his emotions all tension and unhappiness. He didn’t like having Skywalker here. They’d made peace, of a sorts, but it was mostly a peace preserved by distance.

The longer Skywalker was around, the more Cody’s mind returned to a bruise on Once’s jaw, the imprint of fingers, blood on his mouth, and anger. 

“I’m so kriffing sorry,” Skywalker said, and meant it, even as his thoughts rang with  _ but why did he do it why wasn’t I good enough why why why-- _

“I don’t know why,” Once said, wishing the thoughts would stop. “I never understood why.”

“I think maybe you better go,” Cody said, walking across to them, putting an arm around Once, stepping - without even a hint of anything subtle - between him and Skywalker. “Ben should be safe to travel.”

“No, he isn’t,” Once cut in, shaking his head. “Let them stay. They should both sleep.”

#

“I don’t like him here,” Cody told him, after Skywalker curled up in the corner by Ben, his thoughts going quiet with the sleep that came before dreams. Once wasn’t looking forward to seeing his dreams. 

“I couldn’t tell,” Once said, dry, and Cody snorted.

“I just don’t trust him,” Cody said, and the thing that Once appreciated, sometimes more than anything else, was that Cody always matched. He said the things he was thinking and feeling, instead of some confusing mishmash.

“He won’t hurt me again.” Once knew that much. Whatever had happened to Skywalker had changed the shape of him inside. His mind felt like a broken bone that had been reset, not quite in the same position.

“Doesn’t change what he already did,” Cody said, thoughts turning darker, and Once sighed, cupping his cheek, leaning in to kiss him, feeling all his concern, all his affection, all his love and worry mingled together and pulling them close. “I want him to leave tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Once kissed him again, before drawing back enough to rest their foreheads together. Ben would be well enough by then, with any luck, and their moon would be theirs again, and quiet.


	13. Misadventures involving Anakin and Ben

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for off-screen loss of a limb. Written for a prompt meme on tumblr.

“Ugh, why did I  _ eat  _ that?” Anakin’s mouth tasted like something had crawled inside it and died, and that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that the nutribar had stuck to his teeth and he could still feel it. In a life spent eating foods that were strange and often of poor quality, he was no stranger to bad tastes, but this was a special type of disgusting, and he grimaced.

“I don’t know,” Ben said, casting him a look out of the corner of his eyes, before returning his attention to the crack in the hull of the older cargo ship where they’d taken cover. “I told you not to.”

“You did,” Anakin agreed, dropping the rest of the nutribar on the ground and wiping his hand on the floor. He should have known better than to eat something that had been covered in a foot of sand and that had - in all likelihood - been sitting in this ship since it went down. That could have been decades ago, based on the ship’s model. “How’s it looking?”

“Mm, I think they’re waiting for all their friends to show up.” Ben shifted back, handing their set of macrobinoculars over. Anakin leaned over very cautiously and peered out, scowling at the figures silhouetted against the sun on the far hill. 

“They have to know it’s just the two of us in here,” he grumbled, sitting back with a frown. His stomach grumbled again, reminding him that he had tried the nutribar for a reason, after all. It had been too long since either of them bolted down a meal, or even a few bites of sustenance. “You’d think they’d feel confident enough with a dozen men.”

“A pity they’re not that stupid,” Ben said, a grin turning up the corners of his mouth.

“We should go out there.” Ducking into the ancient ship had seemed like a good idea at the time. But that had been hours ago, and it had started to get incredibly hot while they waited for their friends outside to gather enough courage to charge in.

Ben shook his head. “Not with your leg,” he said, barely sparring it a look. He’d dragged Anakin the last stretch across the hard rock, after the mine took him by surprise. He’d tied a tourniquet around Anakin’s thigh with calm, sure fingers, and not commented at all on the ruin below Anakin’s knee.

“My leg is going to be the least of our worries, soon,” Anakin said. The pain was starting to creep back up his body, but they were running almost as low on medical supplies as they were on food. He could wait for it to get worse before he asked for another shot to push the agony away.

Until then, he purposefully ignored it, thinking about the people outside and the horrific nutribar. Anything to stop from considering the damage done to his limb, the words neither one of them were saying about the odds that it could be saved.

Those odds got slimmer, each moment they were trapped in the old ship.

He didn’t mention, either, the dizziness in his head, or the fact that he was beginning to feel cold all over. It wouldn’t help matters. Ben needed to keep his focus on what was going on outside, on their friends there on the hill.

“You should rest,” Ben said, quietly, reaching out and resting a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. Anakin felt the push of the Force in the words, but couldn’t spare the energy to be irritated. He closed his eyes. He slept.

#

“Here.” Ben’s voice woke him, along with a soft touch against the side of his face. Anakin blinked his eyes open. His head felt full of clouds. He was incredibly cold, despite the sweat he could feel running down his back. “Drink this.”

He drank without thinking when Ben pressed something against his bottom lip. A bottle. It was full of water; warm, and tasting of some contaminant or the other. He swallowed it greedily anyway, until Ben said, “Sh, sh, that’s enough.”

Anakin coughed, when Ben took the container away. He blinked, working to focus on Ben, who swam in and out of his vision. There was a smear of something dark and wet across Ben’s forehead. Anakin asked, “Where’d…?”

“They’ve set up a camp,” Ben said, taking off his tunic and draping it over Anakin, tucking it in as best he could. “They had sentries out.”

Anakin was pretty sure that didn’t answer his question. He stared at Ben, mind belatedly identifying that smear across his skin as blood. “But the water…?”

“Came from the sentries, yes.” Ben shifted back, reaching for something on the floor. “They weren’t smart enough to consider that I might sneak up on them in the dark. They had some rations, too. I’ve brought you something to eat.”

Anakin shook his head, his stomach roiling at the thought. “Not hungry,” he rasped.

“Anakin,” Ben said, shifting closer, and then his voice was rising in urgency, his hands were on Anakin’s skin, the world was sideways. Anakin blinked up at him, tried to think of something to say, and passed back into blackness.

#

Anakin woke up next and coughed, his mouth full, unexpectedly, of something that tasted like broth. He was on his back, his head elevated, and hands turned him. Ben said, quietly, ragged, “Force, Force, you’re awake.”

“I’m awake,” Anakin confirmed, when he no longer felt like he was choking. He slumped back. Ben was holding him, he realized, an arm under his shoulders. They weren’t in the ship anymore. There was stone behind Ben’s head.

Anakin blinked, slowly adjusting to the idea that they were in a cave and he had no idea how they’d gotten there. Ben looked… like he wasn’t in any shape to discuss it. There were dark circles under his eyes and a cut across one brow. “You need to drink more,” he said, and Anakin nodded, and put in an effort.

It left him breathing hard, just the act of drinking the impossible broth. He asked, when the cup was empty, and Ben slouched back against the wall, holding Anakin against his chest, “Where are we?”

“In a cave system I found,” Ben said, bringing his other arm up, cupping the side of Anakin’s head.

Anakin nodded against his chest. His blacks were gone, Anakin realized, vaguely, listening to his heart beat. “But our friends outside the ship…?”

“Don’t worry about them,” Ben said, heart thundering under Anakin’s ear, beating too fast. He heard it when Ben swallowed. “I got you out. And I think I managed to get the emergency comm beacon working, too, so. So someone might come looking for us.”

Anakin processed that. It would be nice, he thought, if someone were to come looking for them. “I feel better,” he said, startled to find it was true. He still felt weak, terribly weak, but some of the fog in his mind had disappeared. He wasn’t as cold anymore, didn’t feel like shaking apart. And his leg didn’t…

“Good,” Ben said, voice choked, “good, Anakin, I’m glad.”

“Why do I feel better?” he shifted. Ben felt distraught, upset in a way that always reached right into Anakin’s chest. He shifted a bit, but felt too weak to go anywhere, really. Besides, the beating of Ben’s heart was lulling some part of his brain, dragging him back towards unconsciousness.

“You had an infection,” Ben said, breath hitching, full of anguish and something like horror.

Anakin stared at his skin, at the way his shoulders were shaking, just a little. “In my leg,” he said, carefully, thinking things through slowly, as though if he tried to move too quickly, it would send him back to dreams. “The wounds were infected.” Ben jerked out a nod. “And you found medicine?”

Ben said nothing, not for a long moment, before he rasped, “No, Anakin, I’m sorry. I didn’t.”

Anakin found the strength to lift his head away from Ben’s skin, to straighten his back, the lack of pain from his leg finally fully registering as he looked down his body. He’d lost a limb before. He remembered losing his hand, remembered it in horrifying detail.

He stared, breath frozen in the middle of his chest, and said, numbly, “Oh.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ben repeated, agony in his feelings, “I should have found a way to get you out of there sooner. I should have--”

Anakin groped a hand out without looking, touching Ben’s shoulder, orientating himself. He turned, slumping down against Ben, an arm around his neck. He didn’t want or need Ben’s apologies. It wasn’t Ben’s fault they were here. None of this was Ben’s idea. He’d just… followed Anakin, into this entire mad campaign.

All Anakin wanted to do was press his face against Ben’s skin and breathe there, pretend the last few days - he had no idea how long he’d been out - had ever happened. Ben wrapped both arms around Anakin’s back, fingers clenched in his robes, and, at least Anakin knew now where the smell of lightsaber char had come from.

“It’s alright, Ben,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut, hating the horror he felt from Ben, the pain, the agony. He meant to say more, but his reserves were so limited. He fell back into glorious blackness with a feeling of relief.

#

The next time Anakin woke, he rasped, “I’m thirsty.” He was hungry, too, for the first time in a long time. The air felt cool on his skin and he cracked his eyes open, expecting the cave and getting, instead, the clean likes of a ship.

“Here you go,” a familiar voice said, and it wasn’t Ben. He jerked all the way to wakefulness, sitting up as Ahsoka sat on the side of his bed, holding out a glass of water. He stared at her for a moment, until she nudged the glass against his shoulder.

He took it, carefully, and raised it to his lips, drank it down, before he finally said, “Snips.”

She smiled at him, softly. She looked different, almost grown these days. Her cheeks had gotten sharper, her montrals taller. Her lekku fell almost to her elbows. She said, her voice changed, too, as she grew out of childhood, “Skyguy.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, because that seemed to be the biggest question. “Where is here? And where’s Ben?”

“He’s right there,” she said, gesturing to the side. Ben he found on the next bed over, hooked up to nearly as many machines as Anakin appeared to be. “Neither one of you were in great shape when we found you. And this is… my ship. I guess. And we’re here to rescue you, of course.” Her expression shifted to the side, darkening. “I’m sorry we didn’t make it sooner. Before…”

Her hesitation brought back memories Anakin’s mind had temporarily shut away. He shifted, pulling at the blankets they’d put over him, gazing down with a cool feeling of shock spreading through his chest. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

Anakin reached out, ran his hand down what was left of his thigh, shuddering a bit. He said, feeling far away and distant, “Looks like he did a pretty good job keeping it even.”

“Master,” she said, quietly, reaching out and touching his arm, “if he hadn’t--”

“I know.” Anakin looked up at her, tried to smile and didn’t quite manage it. “The infection. I know.”

She stared at him, head cocked to the side a bit, as though expecting him to rage. He’d taught her to expect that, he figured. It was his own fault that she was holding herself cautiously. He looked away again, cleared his throat. “Guess I’ll be heading back to the Core for a while. Maybe you could give us a lift?”

“Sure thing,” she said, standing and hesitating, for a moment, before she bent to press a brief kiss to the top of his head. “I’ll lay in a course.”

Anakin waited until she left, until the doors closed, and then pulled the blankets the rest of the way off. He poured himself another glass of water and drank. There were tubes in his arms, hooked up to a nutrient solution. He carefully pulled the solution off of it’s hook, and then stood, balancing with the help of the Force.

It wasn’t far, thankfully, to Ben’s bed. Less than a step, really. Anakin re-hung the nutrient solution and sat, dizzy a bit from the effort. Ben made a little sound, questioning, in his sleep, and Anakin could see the bandages across his body, evidence of a fight he’d missed.

He stretched out carefully, Ben curving around to make space, like his body knew the position they took when asleep. Anakin exhaled shakily against the back of his neck, curling an arm around him, so careful with all the tubes attached to them both.

“Anakin?” Ben murmured, thoughts fuzzy, not all the way awake, but getting there and quickly. He stiffened, muscles tightening against Anakin’s chest. “I’m so--”

“Sh,” Anakin said, pulling him closer, wanting -- wanting things he couldn’t have and one thing he could, the comfort of Ben’s body close to his, the comfort of knowing that Ben had saved his life, the comfort of the smell of his hair and the softness of his skin.

He closed his eyes. He slept.


	14. Anakin and Ben Get Around to Getting Married

“So,” Ben said, shifting to sprawl half-across Anakin, with a thoughtful frown on his face, “if we’re to be married, should I contact all of my brothers? Do we need to go back to Naboo? I’m not sure how to arrange for days of feasting.”

Anakin shook his head, relieved that he wasn’t the  _ only  _ one thinking about the proposal he’d blurted out. “No, that’s-- Not everyone gets married that way. That was a Naboo ceremony. Beautiful, but…”

“Mm,.” Ben rearranged himself, relaxing. They’d found a way to fit together well enough on the tiny on-board bunks. “What kind of ceremony do they have on Tatooine, then?”

The reminder that Ben knew plenty about Tatooine - about Anakin’s history there - still cut a little. He’d had a long talk with R2 about just what the kriff the droid had been thinking. R2 had only defended his choice as obviously correct and rolled off, so Anakin wasn’t sure he’d made his point.

He shifted. “We don’t actually have to use those ceremonies. We could just request a form. Fill it out.”

Ben was quiet a moment, fingers tracing absent patterns across Anakin’s ribs. “But you want a traditional ceremony.”

Anakin opened his mouth, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what he wanted and the way those things tangled with what he didn’t want. He hated reminders of Tatooine, hated knowing he’d come from that terrible place, but--

But it still meant something to him. It had still been the foundation he was built on. He swallowed. 

“It’s alright,” Ben said, shifting to kiss his throat. “We don’t have to decide right now.”

#

The decision ate at Anakin’s thoughts. He was beginning to think he’d waited so long to ask out of a crude sense of self-defense against making the decision. After all, he’d known for so long that Ben was the only person he wanted at his side and in his bed. After all, Ben was already calling himself Skywalker. After all….

Well.

They were married in all but word. Figuring out how to accomplish it in word in a way that didn’t leave him feeling achy inside proved a challenge. Recovering from the loss of his leg gave him plenty of time to consider it from all angles and to reach some kind of decision.

Ben glanced up when Anakin approached their kitchen table - the new leg worked well enough, though Anakin had already begun tinkering with it - and set down a pitcher of water and two glasses. “What’s this for?” he asked, eyebrow arching.

“Marriage on Tatooine isn’t just a ceremony,” Anakin said, though the words tried to stick in his throat. Ben had kept him alive when no one else would have bothered. Had saved the galaxy with him. Had given him a second-chance. Anakin could do this.

Ben blinked up at him, setting down the pad in his hands with exaggerated care. “It is?” he asked, softly.

“Yes.” Anakin swallowed and gestured at the pitcher. “So here. Enough water to last a day. You can accept it or reject it.”

Ben reached out slowly, keeping their gazes locked, and carefully drew the pitcher closely, both hands on it. “I accept,” he said. “Of course.” He tilted his head to the side. “Do I give you water, too?”

Anakin shook his head. “No. We - we share this. You’re supposed to serve it.”

Ben looked down at the glasses, breathed out, and nodded. It was just water, when Ben handed over a glass. But it tasted sweet on Anakin’s tongue. “Now what?” Ben asked, when he’d finished draining the cup.

#

There were seventeen steps in the marriage process. They moved through them carefully, some of the weight on Anakin’s shoulders easing with each one, until he barely felt it at all. He told Ben more about Tatooine, more about his childhood, with each small ritual, exposing things he’d never shown anyone, exposing all his soft places.

Ben didn’t dig into them, didn’t take the opportunity to claw and hurt, and Anakin breathed in and breathed out and leaned into him.

Only once, when Anakin felt wrung out after, discussing his mother, did Ben say, “Anakin, we don’t have to--”

“No.” Anakin shook his head. Swallowed. He wished only that his mother had been able to see them together, been able to meet Ben. She would have loved him. “No, I want to.”

#

They said their words, finally, out under the rising suns on Tatooine. 

The paperwork they’d filed officially and there was only family with them. Of course, considering the size of Ben’s family, that meant the sand around them was full. Ahsoka stood out in the crowd, and it made Anakin ache, pleasantly, that she’d agreed to come, that she thought of him as family still, or, perhaps, again.

He had invited Beru and Owen, as well. He thought his mother would have liked that.

Anakin paid no attention to any of them during the ceremony, or even the heat - already rising - and the unpleasant knowledge that the sand was probably creeping into his leg and hand. Ben’s eyes were so blue, his voice so clear when he spoke, and he was all Anakin saw, all Anakin needed to see, for the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> OH I FORGOT I HAVE A TUMBLR: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/glimmerglanger. Feel free to request things over there or just say hi, I'm working on more fic, so I'll be around.


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